Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press Read online

  The Boarding School in Context

  With a few notable exceptions, like the Hallaquah, which was published at a reservation boarding school, most of the writings in this collection were first printed in newspapers published at off-reservation boarding schools. Missionaries assumed the primary responsibility for educating Indian children until the 1870s when the federal government took direct control over Indian education, and policy makers began to shift away from day and reservation schools in favor of off-reservation boarding schools. This shift can be explained in part by a change in public attitudes toward Native Americans, especially among eastern reformers, who saw education as the solution to what had long been deemed the “Indian problem.” Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Richard Henry Pratt were among a cohort of reformers known as the “friends of the Indians” who believed strongly in Indians’ ability to be educated in preparation for citizenship.10 Both Armstrong and Pratt set out to prove that Indians were educable by establishing the first federal off-reservation educational programs designed to eradicate “from students every available trace of Native identity and replac[e] it with a facsimile of whiteness” (Warrior, People, 112).

  The genesis of the federal government’s system of off-reservation boarding schools for Native Americans was Pratt’s educational venture at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida.11 Pratt’s program for Indian prisoners at Fort Marion sought to prove that Native Americans could be educated and civilized. He taught the prisoners English and aimed to instill in them habits of discipline, work, and cleanliness. The containment and seclusion of the fort provided what Pratt believed were ideal conditions for civilizing Native Americans; he would later recreate this model at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania (Fear-Segal, White Man’s Club, 15–18).

  Pratt’s experiment with the prisoners at Fort Marion set a precedent for the creation of the first formal federal off-reservation educational program for Indians. In 1878 Samuel Chapman Armstrong opened the doors of Hampton Institute in Virginia, founded in 1868 to provide freed slaves with a vocational education, to some of the recently released Fort Marion prisoners.12 One year later Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which became the prototype for federal off-reservation boarding schools across the United States.

  The aim of federal boarding schools like Hampton and Carlisle was the same: to provide Native American students with the teachings of civilization in the form of a practical, vocational education. In keeping with the civilizing mission of these schools, students were first taught how to speak, read, and write in English.13 The government established an English-only policy in boarding schools that reflected a belief in the superiority of English over Indian languages. The imposition of an English-only education was highly politicized: the policy, which was strictly enforced from the 1880s until the 1930s, solidified the notion that the acquisition of English was the primary purpose of education for Native Americans.

  As soon as students understood English they were to begin studying other academic subjects like math, geography, and U.S. history. Students received a “half and half” education, meaning that their academic education was accompanied by vocational training designed to enable them to become self-sufficient workers. Students spent part of the day learning trades or performing manual labor and a few hours each day in the classroom. Girls received a domestic education to prepare them to become wives and maids. Boys learned how to use tools and acquired skills associated with farming, blacksmithing, and carpentry. Some male students received training in printing and worked in the printing offices.

  From the beginning of their educational experiments, Armstrong and Pratt set out to sway skeptics about the educability of Indians. As Pratt once explained, his was a twofold educational program: “We have two objects in view in starting the Carlisle School—one is to educate the Indians—the other is to educate the people of the country . . . to understand that the Indians can be educated” (“Indian School Commencement,” Sentinel, 2). Both Hampton and Carlisle established printing offices to aid in their attempts to demonstrate that Indians were educable. Male students were responsible for printing all the publications produced at the printing offices at Hampton and Carlisle. Carlisle’s weekly Indian Helper advertised this fact, announcing on the front page of every issue that it was “printed by Indian boys.” The newspapers themselves attempted to prove to a skeptical public that by providing training in printing to Indian students, the boarding schools were offering them a means of attaining economic self-sufficiency.14

  In addition to showcasing the printing skills of their students in the various school publications, Armstrong, Pratt, and other school authorities frequently published student writings in the pages of the school newspapers to demonstrate to white readers that students were successfully learning the language of civilization. Alongside the student writings and writings about fully assimilated Indians, they printed before-and-after photographs capturing the cultural transformation students underwent at the schools. Together, the photographs and writings told a narrative of assimilation designed to convince white readers that Hampton’s and Carlisle’s educational programs could not only transform “savages” into students but could do so quickly. In this way the white-edited newspapers played a crucial role in gaining the financial and political support of white readers. Armstrong and Pratt sent copies of their newspapers to “every member of Congress, all the Indian agencies and military posts, and the most prominent American newspapers” (Enoch, “Resisting,” 122). For Armstrong, Pratt, and other school authorities, the boarding school press was an important medium for gaining the support of whites in order to ensure the success of their educational experiments.

  Armstrong and Pratt relied heavily on the periodical press to gain public approval of and financial support for their educational programs, especially among those who might influence the government’s policies on Indian education. The white-edited school newspapers served as an important link between school authorities and Washington and helped shape government Indian policy from the late nineteenth century through the early decades of the twentieth (Littlefield and Parins, American Indian, xxviii). They also provided a means for Armstrong, Pratt, and other school authorities to respond to critics of Indian education.

  As early as the 1880s critics began to voice concerns over the system of education practiced at off-reservation boarding schools. According to historian Robert A. Trennert, after 1900 “critics became more vocal and persistent, arguing that the Indian community did not approve of this type of education, that most students gained little, and that employment opportunities were limited at best” (Trennert, “Educating,” 288). Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis E. Leupp (1905–1909) argued that the educational system not only failed to produce self-reliant Indians and to provide students with a useful education but also protected them in an artificial environment in boarding schools, where they received the comforts of civilization at no cost and without developing a work ethic.

  In order to demonstrate that their educational programs could Americanize Indian students, school authorities printed representations of students in the pages of their newspapers that showcased their “progress.” Coverage of Indian Citizenship Day pageants, sporting events, and graduations was meant to signal to white readers that students were capable of being transformed.

  Besides playing a role in promoting the educational work of the schools, the white-edited newspapers at Hampton, Carlisle, and other boarding schools performed specific roles for their Native American readers. These newspapers functioned first and foremost as a pedagogical tool for boarding school students and graduates. As Jessica Enoch points out, Carlisle’s white-edited Indian Helper “taught current and former Carlisle students the rules of etiquette, English, and white behavior, reinforcing the pedagogical objectives learned in the classroom” (Enoch, “Resisting,” 122). Hampton’s white-edited Southern Workman also performed a pedagogical role for students: not only was the Workman the ma
in text in all the reading courses offered at Hampton, but like the Indian Helper, it printed success stories of model students and graduates for other students to emulate (Anderson, Education of Blacks, 50). Furthermore, the white-edited newspapers printed at Hampton and Carlisle served as a disciplinary and surveillance device designed to keep student readers in their place.

  Boarding school newspapers, much like the schools themselves, were complex sites of negotiation. Whereas school authorities used the white-edited school newspapers to publicize their efforts to erase their students’ Indianness by imprinting them with the markers of a white middle-class cultural identity, students often used the school newspapers to defend and preserve Native American identity and culture against the assimilationist imperatives of the boarding schools and the dominant culture. Writing for, editing, and printing school newspapers, students learned how to negotiate the demands placed on them by school authorities who oversaw these publications.

  Writers and Themes

  Of the thirty-five writers and editors whom I have selected to include in this collection, some may be unfamiliar to readers. The students I have selected are notable because they contributed regularly to their school newspaper and some of them even served as editors. Although many of the students who contributed to boarding school newspapers did not continue to publish after they graduated, there are a few exceptions. Hampton Institute graduate Harry Hand (Crow Creek Sioux) founded his own tribal newspapers, the Crow Creek Herald and the Crow Creek Chief. Hand died only one year after he founded the Chief; however, his ambition to serve his community by starting his own newspapers speaks volumes about his belief in the power of the periodical press. Elizabeth Bender (White Earth Chippewa), also a Hampton graduate, continued to publish nonfiction prose in the boarding school press. Through her active membership in the SAI, Bender met and married Henry Roe Cloud (Winnebago), a founding member of the organization. Roe Cloud founded the American Indian Institute, where Bender taught as well as contributed to the institute’s newspaper, the Indian Outlook. Other more prominent writers like Charles Eastman (Santee Sioux) and Angel De Cora (Winnebago), who were boarding school graduates and active members of the SAI, may be familiar to readers, yet many of the writings they published in boarding school newspapers have never before been published in a collection. Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press provides readers with a greater understanding of how these writers engaged each other about a range of topics from education and citizenship to tribal art.

  A crucial topic for many writers collected here is education, and a number of them set out to reflect on the boarding school experience. Boarding school students and graduates responded in multiple ways to their schooling; some took a rather positive view of it, as we see in writings by Henry C. Roman Nose (Southern Cheyenne), Mary North (Arapaho), Luther Standing Bear (Pine Ridge Sioux), and Samuel Townsend (Pawnee), all of whom contributed to the School News. Although the School News was edited by Townsend and another Carlisle student, Charles Kihega (Iowa), it is likely that the newspaper’s content was closely monitored by Pratt and Marianna Burgess, who supervised the printing office. This may explain why, in their writings, students seem to reflect the views of school authorities and are less critical of their boarding school experience, which was, in the words of historian David Wallace Adams, an “education for extinction.”

  Roman Nose’s autobiographical essays appeared in the School News from June 1880 through March 1881. He was one of the Fort Marion prisoners who accompanied Pratt to Hampton and then to Carlisle, where he stayed two years to learn the tinning trade. In his autobiographical essays Roman Nose chronicles his journey from Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, to Carlisle. He also charts his progress from his Indian boyhood marked by hunting and battles to his success as a Carlisle student, which he attributes to his learning English: “They stayed in prison there three years and we had no school, but Capt. Pratt showed us ABC and now we understand these letters. We did not know how to spell anything . . . but [we]have certainly been much benefited” (Roman Nose, “Experiences 1880,” this volume).

  Like Roman Nose, North and Standing Bear emphasize the benefits of their schooling. North contrasts her life as a Carlisle student with her life on the reservation: “When we were at home in Indian Territory we had nothing to do but play and go to the river and go in swimming and now we are way off from home at school and learning something” (North, “A Little Story,” this volume). She tells us that what she is learning is how to write a story, which will give her practice expressing herself in English. In contrast to North, Standing Bear reveals in a letter to his father some of his struggles to learn English: “We are trying to speak only English nothing talk Sioux. . . . I have tried. But I could not do it at first. But I tried hard every day. So now I have found out how to speak only English. I have been speaking only English about 14 weeks now I have not said any Indian words at all” (Standing Bear, Letter to Father, this volume).15

  Fig. 2. Front page of the School News, January 1881. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  The writings of Roman Nose, North, and Standing Bear bring into focus how students negotiated an English-only policy designed to result in their loss of their respective first languages. These students, like so many educated at Carlisle and other boarding schools, were subject to a strict English-only policy that prohibited them from speaking Indian languages on school grounds. Their writings reveal that they did not overtly challenge the English-only policy but rather believed that English-language literacy offered them, their fellow classmates, and even their elders an opportunity for social and economic gain (Standing Bear urges his father to learn English). This was the same message Pratt espoused in his efforts to convince Native American parents to send their children to his school: “Cannot you see it is far, far better for you to have your children educated and trained as our children are so that they can speak the English language, write letters, and do the things which bring to the white man such prosperity, and each of them be able to stand for their rights as the white man stands for his?” (Pratt, Battlefield, 223). Pratt underscored the link between literacy, advancement, and citizenship. He and other school authorities wedded their belief in the promise of literacy to the ideology of social evolutionism. As Amelia Katanski explains, they believed that literacy would “transform students as they ‘progressed’ from tribal ‘savagery’ to Western ‘civilization’” (Katanski, Learning to Write “Indian,” 4). At the same time they considered literacy not only a marker of civilization but also an indicator of students’ complete transformation or loss of Indianness (Katanski, Learning to Write “Indian,” 131).

  What Pratt and other school authorities failed to understand, however, was that most students were not simply going to give up their first languages and Native identities and sever their ties to their tribal communities once they acquired English-language literacy. For many students learning English did not result in a total transformation. Rather, those who learned English and became proficient in it gained the power to use it to serve their communities. In this way they resembled prominent boarding school graduates like Bonnin and Eastman, who as Warrior explains, “wanted what the schools they attended offered. Yet they also wanted to have a stake in their own destiny” (Warrior, People, 116). By fashioning identities for themselves as writers in the pages of boarding school newspapers, students gained control over their self-representations and revised what it meant to be educated Indians, just as Samuel Townsend did in his editorials in the School News.

  In his July 1880 editorial Townsend challenges white stereotypes about Native Americans as uneducable and uncivilized:

  Some white folks say that the Indians do not know anything and can’t learn anything, but the Indians are learning something. Great many of the white folks never read about the Indians and they do not know anything about us, but sometimes they talk bad about us and they say that the Indians h
ave no brains to think with and they can’t learn anything. Sometimes they say Indians can not be civilized. Maybe those white folks don’t know anything. (Townsend, Editorial, July 1880, this volume)

  Here Townsend argues that Native American students were learning and gaining much from their education. He also reverses what white critics say about the ignorance of Native Americans: he argues that those critics are ignorant about Indians’ ability to earn an education and integrate into the dominant culture on an equal basis. In the same editorial Townsend uses cross-cultural comparisons to stress that like whites, Native Americans “can do most anything” so long as they are given an education.

  Furthermore, he argues, Native Americans are not to blame for the slow spread of civilization. He insists instead that the blame rests with the lack of federal funding for boarding schools: “If every Indian boy and girl were in school it would not take long to civilize all the Indians. The reason it takes so long is because Washington does not give enough money to put all the Indian children in school.” Admittedly, Townsend’s rhetoric echoes some of Pratt’s thinking about the fundamental role of education in civilizing Native Americans. However, more significantly, Townsend’s editorial demonstrates that he is not a passive recipient of his boarding school education; indeed, he uses the School News as a venue for “talking back,” to borrow a phrase from historian Frederick E. Hoxie. By talking back to members of the dominant culture, Hoxie writes, “Natives made it clear that they refused to accept the definitions others had of them—savage, backward, doomed” (Hoxie, Talking Back, viii). For Townsend, “talking back” meant challenging, albeit in subtle ways, white stereotypes of Indians and the assumption that white culture was superior.